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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Dedham (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Dedham. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Dedham is located in Carroll County.

To see how the shape of Iowa's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Carroll County: Audubon, Calhoun, Crawford, Greene, Guthrie, Sac & Shelby.

Below are the counties that are near Dedham. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Dedham:

  • Carroll County     (The home county of Dedham)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dedham, with the one closest to Dedham listed first.
    • Willey
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
    • Templeton
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Coon Rapids
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Roselle
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Carroll Community Estates
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Halbur
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Halbur is located in Carroll County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Halbur
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 252 people
    • Carroll
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Glidden
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Manning
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Ralston
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Lidderdale
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Arcadia
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Arcadia is located in Carroll County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arcadia
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 531 people
    • Breda
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Audubon County
  • Calhoun County
  • Crawford County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dedham, with the one closest to Dedham listed first.
    • Aspinwall
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Westside
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Manilla
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Vail
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Vail is located in Crawford County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vail
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 413 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Vail <1>
    • Astor
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
      • Astor is located in Crawford County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Astor
    • Boyer
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Deloit
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Deloit is located in Crawford County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Deloit
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 254 people
    • Denison
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
    • Buck Grove
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Buck Grove is located in Crawford County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buck Grove
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 43 people
    • Sunset Village
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Sunset Village is located in Crawford County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sunset Village
  • Greene County
  • Guthrie County
  • Sac County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dedham, with the one closest to Dedham listed first.
    • Auburn
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Grant City
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Grant City is located in Sac County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grant City
    • Herring ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Sac City Junction ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Sac City Junction is located in Sac County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sac City Junction
    • Wall Lake
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Lake View
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Shelby County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dedham, with the one closest to Dedham listed first.
    • Botna
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Irwin
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Elk Horn
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Kirkman
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Kirkman is located in Shelby County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kirkman
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 61 people
    • Defiance
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
      • Defiance is located in Shelby County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Defiance
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 260 people

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Dedham, see our County-by-County Page for Dedham.

Cemeteries Near Dedham ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Dedham.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Dedham - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Dedham covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Dedham, with the one closest to Dedham listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Dedham had a population of 273 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Dedham had a population of 248 people.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Dedham, with the one closest to Dedham listed first.

  • Willey
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Carrollton
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Carrollton is located in Carroll County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carrollton
  • Templeton
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Viola Center
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Viola Center is located in Audubon County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Viola Center
  • Coon Rapids
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
  • Roselle
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Gray
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Ross
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Halbur
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Halbur is located in Carroll County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Halbur
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 252 people
  • Carroll
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
  • Glidden
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Manning
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Dedham. See our List of 1890's Communities around Dedham.

Newspapers Published in Dedham ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 94 newspapers that have been published in the area around Dedham.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Dedham, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Dedham.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Dedham:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Dedham, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Dedham) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.